Musa yana yin dariya, amma ’yar uwarsa ba ta yi haka ba, tana yin murmushi.

Musa is laughing, but his sister is not doing that; she is smiling.

Breakdown of Musa yana yin dariya, amma ’yar uwarsa ba ta yi haka ba, tana yin murmushi.

• ne: to be
• Musa: Musa
• ba … ba: not
• amma: but
• yi: to do
• ’yar uwa: the sister
• ta: she
• dariya: the laughter
• murmushi: the smile
• haka: like that

Questions & Answers about Musa yana yin dariya, amma ’yar uwarsa ba ta yi haka ba, tana yin murmushi.

What does ’yar uwarsa literally mean, and how does it come to mean his sister?

Literally, ’yar uwarsa breaks down like this:

• ’yar = daughter / girl (feminine of ɗa, son/child)
• uwa = mother
• -r- = linking consonant (used when adding a suffix)
• -sa = his (3rd person masculine possessive)

So uwa + -r- + sa = uwarsa = his mother.

Putting it together:

• ’yar uwarsa = the daughter of his mother
  → In normal English: his sister (specifically, a female sibling who shares his mother).

So Hausa expresses his sister here as his mother’s daughter.

Why does ’yar start with an apostrophe (’)? How is it pronounced?

The apostrophe in ’yar marks that the word historically begins with a glottal stop and that a vowel has been dropped in spelling.

• Pronunciation is roughly like yar, starting with a y sound, then the a, then a light r.
• You can think of ’yar as sounding like yar in “yard” but very short, and with a tapped/trilled r at the end.

In practical terms for a learner:

• Say it as yar with a short a and a quick r.
• You don’t need to do anything special for the apostrophe in everyday speech; it just reflects Hausa orthography.

Why is it Musa yana yin dariya but ’yar uwarsa tana yin murmushi? What is the difference between yana and tana?

Yana and tana are the progressive forms for he is and she is:

• yana = he is (doing …)
• tana = she is (doing …)

They are built from:

• ya (he) + na (progressive marker) → yana
• ta (she) + na (progressive marker) → tana

So:

• Musa yana yin dariya = Musa is laughing → Musa is male → yana
• ’yar uwarsa … tana yin murmushi = his sister … is smiling → sister is female → tana

Hausa verbs must agree in gender with the subject in the 3rd person singular, so yana vs tana is an important contrast.

What is the role of yin in yana yin dariya and tana yin murmushi? Why not just yana dariya?

Yi is the Hausa verb to do / to make.

• Its verbal noun (gerund) is yin = doing.

In the sentence:

• yana yin dariya = he is doing laughter → he is laughing
• tana yin murmushi = she is doing a smile → she is smiling

You will see both patterns in Hausa:

1. With yin

   • noun:
   • yana yin dariya
   • tana yin murmushi

2. Without yin, directly with the noun:

   • Musa yana dariya = Musa is laughing
   • ’yar uwarsa tana murmushi = his sister is smiling

Both are acceptable. Using yin often makes the idea of an activity a bit more explicit, like English doing X, but meaning-wise they are very close in this context.

Why is the negative part ba ta yi haka ba and not something like ba ta yin haka ba or ba ta murmushi ba?

The phrase ba ta yi haka ba literally means:

• ba … ba = not (negative frame)
• ta = she (3rd person feminine subject)
• yi = do
• haka = like this / like that / in that way

So:

• ba ta yi haka ba = she did not do that / she doesn’t do that / she doesn’t do it that way

In this sentence it means:

Musa is laughing, but his sister does not do that (she doesn’t act that way); she is smiling.

Some possible variants and their nuances:

• ba ta yi dariya ba = she is not laughing / she didn’t laugh
  (directly negates dariya)

• ba ta yin haka ba = she is not doing that / she doesn’t do that
  (negative progressive of tana yin haka)

The author chose ba ta yi haka ba to say roughly she doesn’t do that (like him), keeping haka to point back to Musa’s laughing. Then the clause tana yin murmushi specifies what she does instead.

How does the negative structure ba … ba work in ba ta yi haka ba?

Ba … ba is a common Hausa way to form negation, acting like a negative “frame” around the clause.

In ba ta yi haka ba:

• ba (first) = opens the negation
• ta yi haka = she did that / she does that
• ba (last) = closes the negation

Pattern:

• ba + subject (ta) + verb (yi) + complement (haka) + ba

Meaning:

• ta yi haka = she did that / she does that
• ba ta yi haka ba = she did not do that / she does not do that

You’ll see the same pattern with other subjects:

• ba ya yi haka ba = he doesn’t do that
• ba su yi haka ba = they don’t do that

What does haka add in ba ta yi haka ba? Could we leave it out?

Haka means like this / like that / in that way / so.

In ba ta yi haka ba, it refers back to what Musa is doing – laughing. So it’s like saying:

• She doesn’t do it like that (the way he does).

If you drop haka:

• ba ta yi ba is not grammatical on its own; yi (do) normally needs something after it, like an object or a complement.

More explicit alternatives would be:

• ba ta yi dariya ba = she does not laugh / she is not laughing
• ba ta dariya ba (also heard colloquially) = she isn’t laughing

But ba ta yi haka ba is a neat way to say she doesn’t do that (like him), and it prepares the contrast with tana yin murmushi: instead of laughing, she’s smiling.

What is the difference between dariya and murmushi?

Both are related to positive facial expressions, but they’re not the same:

• dariya = laughter, usually audible laughing (chuckling, giggling, laughing out loud).
• murmushi = smile or a soft, gentle laugh (often without much sound).

In this sentence the contrast is:

• Musa yana yin dariya → Musa is laughing (more expressive, audible)
• ’yar uwarsa … tana yin murmushi → his sister is smiling (quieter, more restrained)

So Hausa here draws a similar distinction to English laugh vs smile.

How is possession shown in uwarsa? Why is it -sa and not -ta, since the sister is female?

In Hausa, the possessive suffix agrees with the owner, not with the thing owned.

In uwarsa:

• uwa = mother
• -r- = linking consonant
• -sa = his (3rd person masculine possessor)

So:

• uwarsa = his mother (the mother of a male person)
• ’yar uwarsa = the daughter of his mother → his sister

If the possessor were female, you’d use -ta (her):

• uwarta = her mother
• ’yar uwarta = her mother’s daughter → her sister (from her mother’s side)

Here, the possessor is Musa (male), so the suffix is -sa (his), even though uwa (mother) and ’yar (daughter) are both female nouns.

Why is there only one amma (but), even though there are two clauses about the sister: ba ta yi haka ba and tana yin murmushi?

Amma introduces the contrast between Musa and his sister:

• Musa yana yin dariya, amma ’yar uwarsa …
  → Musa is doing X, but his sister …

After amma ’yar uwarsa, Hausa just continues describing what the sister does in two parts:

1. ba ta yi haka ba = she does not do that (what he is doing)
2. tana yin murmushi = she is smiling

These two clauses are simply put one after the other with a comma, both referring to ’yar uwarsa. The second verb tana already contains the subject pronoun ta (she), so Hausa doesn’t need another conjunction like amma or kuma.

You could add kuma (and/also) if you wanted to be very explicit:

• … ba ta yi haka ba, kuma tana yin murmushi.

But it’s not necessary; the original is perfectly natural.

Could I say the same sentence in a slightly different but still correct way in Hausa?

Yes. Several variants would be natural and keep the same meaning. For example:

1. Shortening the yin:

   • Musa yana dariya, amma ’yar uwarsa ba ta dariya ba, tana murmushi.

2. Keeping haka but matching the progressive aspect:

   • Musa yana yin dariya, amma ’yar uwarsa ba ta yin haka ba, tana yin murmushi.

3. Making the contrast more explicit:

   • Musa yana yin dariya, amma ’yar uwarsa ba ta yin dariya ba; tana yin murmushi.

All of these keep the core idea:

• Musa is laughing,
• but his sister is not doing that,
• she is smiling instead.

What is the basic word order in this sentence? Does Hausa word order work like English here?

Yes, in this sentence Hausa largely follows a Subject – (Aspect) – Verb – Object/Complement pattern, similar to English:

• Musa (Subject)
  yana (he-is, progressive)
  yin dariya (doing laughter)

• ’yar uwarsa (Subject)
  ba ta yi haka ba (does not do that)
  tana yin murmushi (she-is doing a smile)

So in simple clauses you can think of Hausa as:

• Subject + (yana/tana/muna/…) + verb phrase

This makes sentences like this fairly straightforward for English speakers once the particles (like yana, tana, ba … ba) are understood.